Media Bites: Sun News Will Go Dark With Dignity

If you've been watching Sun News lately -- and all statistical evidence suggests you haven't -- you'd know that much of their programming has recently taken the tone of a cloying PBS telethon, complete with gratingly perky female hosts. Since this is the network that usually spends most of its time warning that Islamo-fascists are turning our kids into gay, Christmas-hating Trudeau groupies, you might suspect something's up. And you might suspect right.

Our pals at Sun are currently embroiled in the greatest existential crisis of their just-under-two-year existence: people can't figure out what channel they're on.

Well, there's other stuff too, but it mostly revolves around that.

See, under current decree of our knowing elders at the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Sun News is designated a "specialty" cable channel, which is basically the Canadian television equivalent of that chocolate-vanilla twist ice cream at McDonalds' -- unless you know it exists and ask for it specifically, it's easy to live life without ever experiencing it.

And even if you do somehow order Sun, it'll almost certainly have a crap spot in the channel hierarchy. Basically whatever number's still left after the cable people have finished packing the good ones with reliable standbys like the Outdoor Life Network, the Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, and everything else that promises an intellectual journey of enlightenment but actually delivers hillbilly auctioneers.

The good free-marketeers at Sun are thus ironically begging to escape this ghetto of the high-800s via a CRTC re-designation known as "mandatory carriage," a phrase that's gotta be among the least free-market sounding anythings. And rightfully so -- mandatory carriage status does exactly what it sounds like, namely force every major Canadian cable corporation (all two of them) to include the channel in every "basic cable" package they offer.

Winning this prize would not only ensure more Canadian eyeballs are pried in Sun's direction (think Clockwork Orange) but also give those eyeballs a cable bill hike for the privilege -- about four bucks per year, predicts the Globe and Mail.

"Now, you and I might want to live in a libertarian world where we can choose what we want when we want it and pay for it directly," says Ezzie, well aware of the hypocritical road he's heading down, but this utopia ain't "coming anytime soon to your TV." So suck it up, princess, and make with the four bucks.

But ol' man Steve Ladurantaye, the Globe's media reporter, smells a long shot. "There are only 10 channels currently enjoying mandatory carriage," he notes, and most of them are politically-correct junk like CBC, CBC en français, Aboriginal People's Television, CPAC, and various other things no one actually watches, but the CRTC still thinks you should feel guilty about ignoring.

Sun's desperate appeal isn't terribly unique either, he adds -- wanting to join the CRTC's "must-carry" in-crowd is exactly as popular as you'd assume joining an elite business cartel whose ability to leech profits from the public is guaranteed through the heavy-hand of state authority would be -- everyone from the Movie Channel to something called "Natural Resources Television" wants in.

"Proof, yet again," sneers Andy Coyne at the National Post "that the only thing you need to succeed in Canadian business is utter shamelessness, coupled with an invincible sense of entitlement to the public's money."

I've gone on Sun News a few times, and hopefully I'm not conflicting any interests when I say I wouldn't mind going back again someday. They're a fun bunch, albeit a tad low-budget (their "Vancouver studio" for instance, is a single room in a dumpy building containing a faded backdrop of the downtown skyline to disguise the fact that they're nowhere near it). I'm also doubtful if they really speak as much truth-to-power as they claim -- we do live under a Conservative government, after all -- nor if such truth power-telling couldn't be done equally well online, if it came to that (already one of their best services is their Facebook page infographics).

But in a country as stiff and staid in its defence of conventional wisdom as ours, it's hard not to be impressed with the sheer vigor of Sun's contrarian spirit. Whether that's worth a $4 national tax is a tougher question, but luckily no one's asking us.

Among people who enjoy gossiping about this sort of thing, it's long been suspected that barring a tide turn in their favour, Sun's best hope for the future will probably be (to paraphrase President Nixon) "death with honour." The network might not be able to survive the crippling weight of CRTC regulations, broadcast standards complaints, heavily-subsided and state-owned competitors and so forth, but since those are the very things Ezra and company love to bemoan in the first place, there might be some vindicating dignity in dying at their hands.

And if there's an outcome to worry progressives more than the channel's survival, it should be that.

If you think Sun News fans are obnoxious now, just imagine them with a martyr complex.

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Canada's 7 Media Giants

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Postmedia was born in 2010, when the bankrupt Canwest media chain was broken up. A consortium led by then-National Post CEO Paul Godfrey bought Canwest's newspaper assets, including the National Post, Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald, as well as both English-language dailies in Vancouver.
Pictured: Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company

Torstar's flagship property is the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. It also owns the Metroland chain of weeklies and the internationally popular Harlequin, publisher of pulp romances.
Pictured: The Toronto Star building in downtown Toronto.
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company

Western Canadian cable TV giant Shaw entered the media big leagues with the 2010 purchase of Canwest's broadcasting assets, including the Global TV network. The company was founded by Jim Shaw and is still controlled by his family.
Pictured: CEO Brad Shaw
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this slide stated that Shaw had purchased Canwest's newspaper assets. It only purchased the broadcasting assets. The company had backed out of an earlier attempt to buy three CTV stations.

Founded by Pierre Peladeau and run by his son, Pierre-Karl Peladeau, Quebecor owns the Sun Media and Osprey newspaper chains, as well as cable provider Videotron, Quebec TV network TVA, and a number of publishing houses.
Pictured: Pierre-Karl Peladeau
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company

Founded by Ted Rogers, Rogers Communications is a major player in cable TV and wireless services. The company controls Rogers Media, which operates 70 publications, 54 radio stations and a number of TV properties including CityTV and the Shopping Channel.
Pictured: CEO Nadir Mohamed
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company

Woodbridge is the holding company owned by the billionaire Thomson family. It controls 55 per cent of Thomson Reuters, one of the world's largest news services organizations. Woodbridge's revenue is not reported, but Thomson Reuters reported revenue of $13.8 billion in 2011.
Pictured: The late Kenneth Thomson, company chairman, in Toronto in 2003.
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company

BCE is one of Canada's largest corporations, and owns telephone, Internet and TV infrastructure. Its subsidary Bell Media purchased the CHUM group of radio stations in 2006, and Astral Media in 2012. The company also controls CTV, making it a dominant media player in Canada.
*Number denotes latest available revenue figure, for parent company